Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I will do something dangerous and ignore my script. I can give the Senator another story to quote. When I was a civil servant many years ago, one of my senior and wiser people advised me about the dangers of Ministers who got their script too early and wrote on it. The real horror was a Minister who got a script and then changed it. Worse still was a character who actually said what he thought.

A petitions committee is an interesting idea, something I do not say in a patronising way. I will refer to two points made by Senator Ryan. One is that politics matters. If we do not believe that, we should not be here, nor should we subscribe to the idea that this is a modern democratic State. Whatever we disagree on, we must agree on that essential common point. I will make a couple of critical points but do not want be regarded as throwing cold water on what I regard as a fundamentally good idea.

Senator Ryan also urged re-engagement with the public, with which I also agree. If we care for democracy there is a critical need to do so. If, as a State, we do not re-engage with the public or get the public to re-engage with politics, the country will end up being run by faceless people who, for all their many talents, will never be answerable to anybody. We have created not just a tyranny of expertise but, in many areas of public administration and life, a tyranny of people who are not answerable. That is wrong because the essence of democracy is for the people — the Demos — to have the right to express an opinion.

There are many things I could say but I will focus on a couple of points. I pay tribute to Senator O'Rourke and I am pleased Senator Tuffy did so. She has driven the reform agenda in the Seanad, I will not say manfully—